Tradition
by the one who hums
Summary: "She's commemorating the day we burned our house down with a cake! You don't find that weird at all?" Winry's traditions are a little unorthodox, and Edward is not amused. (Happy FMA Day!)


**A/N:** Here's a dumb little idea I got for FMA Day. It's not the best, but at least I didn't forget like I did last year. I just thought I'd put a different spin on the typical FMA Day story. Hope you like it!

Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist or any of its characters. I think I mentioned Picasso somewhere in this as well, so I guess I better say that I don't own him either

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The aroma of baked goods filled Edward's nose before he had even reached the door to the Rockbell house. As he walked up the stone pathway to his home, the wind carried the scent all the way down to him from the open kitchen window. Ed smiled at the thought of an apple pie waiting for him for dessert, still piping hot, just the way he preferred. He inhaled deeply, trying to get a better whiff of the delectable scent. Wait, not apple pie. He couldn't smell any cinnamon. The fragrant dessert smelled much more of chocolate than it did anything else. He mentally flipped through page after imaginary page of Winry's tattered old cook book, trying to imagine what ornate dessert she could possibly be whipping up this time.

He was still struggling to identify the mouth-watering chocolatey aroma (Brownies?) as he entered the house. Ed shucked his coat off and threw it over the couch while patting Den on the head, who had bounded over to him at the sound of his arrival. It was while he was scratching the eager dog behind the ears that he recalled what day it was.

For fuck's sake.

"Winry, are you kidding me?"

Leaving the grumbling pooch behind, Ed walked into the kitchen to see Winry icing a chocolate cake. The frosting was a simple white, but that wasn't what concerned him. It was the multi-colored piping bags next to the cake that caught his eye.

She looked up from her work to see Edward standing in the doorway, arms crossed. She clapped her hands and smiled, eyes bright despite Ed's gloomy attitude. "Hi there, Ed! I didn't hear you come in! Have you seen Al around?"

Ed sighed. "Cut the crap, Winry." He gestured to the half-frosted dessert. "Again?"

"It's a tradition!"

"That_ you_ started."

"Well, Ed, traditions don't happen unless _somebody_ starts them."

"Yes, but you are also the only one who participates in this little tradition, Miss Rockbell."

She swatted at him with a chocolate spotted rag. "Oh, don't be such a party pooper. It's just a little something to commemorate the occasion."

He couldn't stop his jaw from going slack for a moment. "In what universe does this seem like a day that we would want to remember?!"

Winry's hands balled into fists and she rested them on her hips as she turned to fully look her boyfriend in the eye. "Edward Elric, this has been an on-going tradition in this family for years. Don't you try to take it away from me now. The cake is already half-done! Just go find your brother and stay with him until I say I'm ready."

"But—"

"Out!"

And with another swat of a dirty dishrag, Edward Elric was exiled from his own kitchen.

He sighed and walked up the creaky wooden stairs to the second floor, opening up the door to Winry's bedroom and bounding over to her bed in three large steps. He flopped down on the bed loudly, sighing dramatically at the fact that Winry was pulling these dumb antics _again_.

"She's baking a cake again," Ed said without bothering to look up, voice muffled by the pillow his face was currently stuffed in.

"I know."

Ed turned his head from the pillow and looked over to Winry's desk, where he knew his brother would be. Al's steady gaze never wavered from the notebooks splayed out before him. He brought the pencil he was holding to his mouth and bit the eraser in concentration, not paying an ounce of attention to his older brother. He continued to scratch out lines of elemental formulas in his journal and rewrite them until Edward spoke again.

"And it doesn't bother you?"

Al closed his research notebook and exhaled, turning to look at Ed. "It's something she's been doing for years. Can't you just let her be happy about it?"

"She commemorating the day we burned our house down with a cake! You don't find that weird at all?"

Al laughed. "Of course I do, brother. But this is Winry's way of celebrating how far we've come since then. And if she wants to do it by baking us a delicious cake, why not let her?"

Edward huffed, and if he wasn't laying on his stomach on his girlfriend's bed, he probably would have crossed his arms again. "Still seems cruel to me. What if we don't want to remember it?" he muttered.

"Says the guy who scratched 'Don't forget' into the inside of his pocket watch."

Ed glared, but the affect was lost on Alphonse, who was looking past him in reverie. "I wonder what she's going to put on the cake this year…"

"Who knows? Every year it's something different."

"Do you remember that one time when she managed to pipe on a picture of your automail arm?" Al laughed at the thought. "What did she write on that cake again?"

"Something like 'I'm glad you guys got your bodies back and all, but did you HAVE destroy my pride and joy in the process?' Honestly I'm surprised she fit all that onto one cake." Ed shook his head at Winry's ridiculousness. "I still think that deep down she's a little upset that I got my arm back. That gearhead was _crazy_ about that automail arm."

Alphonse chuckled. "I'm surprised that a girl who can draw a perfect automail arm on a cake with icing can't draw a circle to save her life."

Ed couldn't help but laugh at that. "Are you talking about the cake that she tried to draw your blood seal on?" His giggles turned into guffaws at the memory. Al joined in on the laughter, nodding to his brother because he couldn't get enough air to speak. Ed did his best to speak once he caught his breath, wiping a tear from his eye. "That was the worst one! I don't even think that wobbly, swirly thing even counted as a shape!"

"It definitely wasn't a transmutation circle, that's for sure!"

They carried on for a while after that, talking about the other laughable pastries Winry had made over the past couple years. There was one the with a bottle of milk painted on it in buttercream icing, with the words 'All that hidden dairy in Ed's food finally paid off.' Despite that fact that it should have been the year that Edward would be most gleeful, for finally becoming taller than Al, he moped the entire time they ate that cake. There was one cake that Winry had apparently messed up so badly that that she just squirted a bunch of random colors over her original drawing and smoothed the icing out. She had said something along the lines of "The different colors represent all the emotions you guys went through while you were trying to get your bodies back."

"Our resident Picasso just didn't want to admit that she horribly screwed up that cake," Ed said, dissolving into another fit of giggles with his brother.

They snickered like children until a comfortable silence formed between them. "Okay, okay. Maybe this cake thing isn't all bad," Ed admitted.

Al smiled and opened his mouth to say something when Winry's voice echoed up the staircase.

"You can come down now!"

The two brothers rolled their eyes and smiled, standing from their respective places in Winry's room and heading downstairs. Winry stopped them before they could enter the kitchen, though, demanding that they close their eyes.

"Do we really have to, Winry?" Alphonse nudged his brother in the ribs with his elbow. Ed sighed. "Fine, fine."

Both brothers closed their eyes and held their arms forward, allowing Winry to grip their outstretched hands and lead them into the kitchen, stopping in front of the table that presumably held their annual October third cake.

"And….ta-da!"

Ed's eyes snapped open, and as he glanced down at the design on the two-layer chocolate cake, his eyes softened. It was the picture of all of them as children. Winry stood in the middle, smiling at the camera as she held the two boys on either side of her, pulling their faces close to hers to all fit in the shot. Al beamed at Pinako, who was taking the photo, while Edward had his trademark scowl on his face for being included in something he didn't want to take part in. While Winry's eyes were a little bit too large, and the icing had smudged around Ed's eyebrows, making one of them look twice as thick as the other, Ed had to admit that the cake didn't look half bad. The bottom only had one word written on it.

Family.

"It looks great, Winry!" Al patted her on the back with a huge grin. "It looks just like us! Where'd you get the idea?"

Ed glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "Oh, I just saw the photo tacked on the wall the other day, and I figured it would work well for today." She kept the smile on her face as she swiped her finger at some of the icing stuck to the side of the plate. Although the statement seemed innocent enough, there was something about the quiet way that she answered that made Ed understand.

"How so? What does _today_ have to do with family?" Al asked curiously, not getting the point.

"Today was the day Winry thought she lost hers."

Winry froze, then slowly turned her head to look Ed in the eye. He was right, he could tell from the look on her face.

While the two brothers hardly ever discussed this day with each other, they discussed it even less with Winry. No one had ever bothered to ask what October third meant to her, and it seemed that as much as Edward had tried to put this day behind him, this day of grief and running away from his problems, Winry couldn't.

While it marked the beginning of a journey for Edward and Alphonse many years ago, for Winry October third marked a day of uncertainty. After already losing her parents, there weren't many people left in Winry's life that she cared about deeply. And on that cold October day, as she had watched the Elric house burn to the ground, she was the only one who cried. Her family was leaving again, and that time she knew understood that they might not return.

As Ed looked into Winry's blue eyes, he could see the same relief in them that he saw the day Al and him finally returned to Resembool in their original bodies. Despite the uncertainty of October third, everything had turned out alright for them. Winry's family had returned to her.

Al looked at the two in bewilderment, wondering what sort of message was passing between his brother and friend when Winry spoke up. "It's just nice to have you guys back in one piece, is all."

Ed put his arm around Winry's shoulders, pulling her towards him and planting a kiss on her forehead. "The cake's great, Win. It really is."

Winry smiled softly at Edward, then turned to Alphonse. "Okay Al, let's go get some plates and eat this thing. I worked all day on it, I'm not going to let it go unappreciated!"

And with that, the hustle and bustle of the kitchen returned. Winry untangled herself from Ed and searched the kitchen for plates and forks while Alphonse left the room to see if they had any napkins. Ed sat down at the table and smiled at the chocolate reminder.

It seemed he wasn't the only one who couldn't forget this day.

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**A/N:** Writing this made me sooo hungry.


End file.
